Long Journey Back

Lightened heart

She walked aimlessly through a narrowed pathway, her feet dragging slightly across the cobblestones, weary and bandaged. There was not a peep of sound around her except her uneven breaths into the cold air causing puffs of air to rise into the air. Street walkers bared no care to the helpless weep of a body she carried, the blood dripping between her bandaged feet turned the noses away, a metallic scent filling their heads with scare.

"Old streets you fill me with nothing but bleeding feet and a body turning men sick" She whispered softly as she collapsed to her knees almost begging to the moon. "Save me from this hell, save me from the life I wish had never been bestowed upon my ghastly soul" a cry, a plea of hopelessness, there was no answer. She did not fear the dark, in fact the dark comforted her almost as a jacket does to a cold body. A touch of remembrance embraced her as it always had done.

"I am lonely" she ended with her eyes shutting tightly closed her fur keeping her warm but the bandages still seeped and the wounds grew with time, the pain sending her into a numb sleep for the cold cold night.

...

"My heart is one not opened by a fool, it is locked in a cage by fear and rage. Scare the few who dare to jump and face the fate which ends us all. The king batters to battle his armies waiting promptly for your arrival, my heart beyond the treasure forever sealed. A time forgotten within a shell ever to stand still in a heat of destruction"

"Ah you are awake I see, finally" a voice murmurs into a rumble of trying to perch herself from the sleep which kept her still. The voice became a cloak and beneath the cloak there was a voice who spoke once again. "I pardon my intrusion but your feet were eyeing my needled friends which needed seen attention to" A woman's voice tender within the beaded darkness of the silk which flowed to the floor, her shoes shining through beneath. The shoes were only black with a golden buckle fastening the shoe together tightly, the carved gold seemed expensive but were not to be shown of by the cloaked figure.

Bundled into a warm bath the cloaked figures hands brushed and washed the rotten flesh on the woman before her. She endured the smell of the burned, the cleaned and she bathed her with no reward. "Diega, my name is Diega" she spoke as the brushes touched her fur, a smell of replenishment was joyful in a time of war. She felt clean for the first time in so long, a feeling scarring her back to the point of rejection.

"Times like this we not talk of why, we do and we have to. There is no reason to thank me. I recognized your fur from the footfalls of Luceno, a dangerous time to be walking freely like you did my dear" The cloak pondered further, the stares ran deep into Diega's fur and bites and scratches, wounds and poisoned teeth. Diega was quiet, her small breaths telling herself she was out of time, only a few weeks and the poison would reach her heart and turn her into a human of the new age. If only there was more time.

"Mari am I, old and tired as your feet are wearing dear. Mari was a name rich as this town used to be, a princess among swine it was. Not in this world though, a dawning of the new age wears down upon us, that fur will be shredded from your bones with the poison too. It will not be long before the time will come for you to join the hate and carry the weapons which we made from the scars on our hands".

Diega sighed, a clear point of realization was notably coming to an end. The fight was nearly over and the ideas of running were few and pointless. The war was ending and so was she.

"Mari? If the fur I wear is much hated then why did the gods bear us with the threads? The gods of old would be crying for this destruction the humans crave after. It is nothing but a foul smell rising from the center earth which calls for her young to run" Diega spurred, her sighs filling the empty room with a new sense of depression.

///

The room was built from wood, the walls caving in slightly from hits of hate. The ceiling was low yet Diega was not of a height to reach it or bump her head into it. The furniture was all in one room, vintage armchairs once worth a fortune sat heavily dusty by the fire place which blazed brightly. The fireplace adorned frames and photos taken in black in white, smiling faces of a kind not seen in this day. The sadness was heavily seated in the pictures of memories long forgotten. Diega kept her sharp eyes glued the cloaked figure in confusion.

"Why do you cover the skin which has become old, yet wise with kindness?" Diega asked, the green flickers in her eyes glinting from the fire. The black heap of curls falling from her shoulders, small lips tinted pink and a small nose centered her face with a sense of smell for miles around, she was interesting to look at no doubt and her freckles dusted her cheeks, the mix of colours were confusing to the human eye today.

The cloak sat beside the bath Diega sat in and rose before seating herself down again. "With the burned flesh I bear I protect you from the burning fumes from underneath my thick cloak, you shall not be laying an eye underneath as I have chosen my dear" Mari spoke sadly, a strictness in her voice yet a knowing glance sent Diegas keen glaze downwards to her own cursed form of a body.

///

The strangers trusted each other, stories not told, only hidden beneath the surface they both accepted the trust of each other as they had to. There was a fate of death as to helping the fatally injured and in hiding Mari would not say a word to the dreaded human warriors which crawled over the lands in power.

Diega would only have to wait for the curse to overcome her, perhaps she would leave Mari. The burned stench of fur reminded her of the kindness and she decided to stay. She would only have to wait for a night before a turning third stranger knocked upon the door. This one was not as welcome...